MAGIC EYE OF HIGH SPEED CAMERA

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5303, 16 January 1947, Page 2

MAGIC EYE OF HIGH SPEED CAMERA

NOW TO BE UTILISED FOR RACE PHOTOGRAPHY News that the running-strip photochart camera may be iised at the Newmarket racecourse this flat-rac-jng season recalls h'ow the device was adapted as a secret weapo-n in. World War II. This apparatus works at such ' high speds — 3,000 pictures a second— that most intricate operations cair be photographed and the resulting film flashed on to the cinema screen at slow motion, revealing every detail.Britain's scientists were not -slow to seize on this fact, and profelems concerning secret weapons, such as rocket projectiles, were_solved as the reswlt of pictures taken. It was possible to show the rockets gliding almost languidly from the launching racks. The action of the fastest firing' gun was similarly slowed down. A picture study of one new gun showed that reloading did riot begin until the spent cartridge had been ejected; the de.sign .was modjlned to con&iderably increase the rate of fire. By similar means studies were made of complicated, high-speed factory machines, resulting in improvements and adjustments that speeded up output and improved the quality of the products. The Royal Navy used the camera to study the result of near misses on bulls of ships. 'Navy engineers found out, through the pictures taken, why bulkhead lights were smashed when ships fired their main armament. A' film study of fuel injection spray for Diesel engines enabled engineers to design a jet that gave an even spread" of gas in the combustion chambers. It also revealed what no one had suspected before — the jet came in pulses. So Britain's Navy, Army and Air Force found the magic eye camera a valuahle link in increasing their warwinning efliciency; to solve the protolems of factories and workshops it was equally valuable — and the improved quality of Britain's postwar civilian production for home and overseas is undoubtedly due iu sorae measure to this novel apparatus.